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Donkey Punch (5 out of 5 Swans): What happens when seven ordinary young people, inexperienced in the rough and tumble of life, are thrust into an extraordinary situation requiring life-altering decisions to be made in an extremely short period of time? That’s the dilemma faced by the seven young people in this exceptional film. As they try to deal with the problem, tension mounts and violence rears its ugly head. Acts that none of them would have thought themselves capable of suddenly become possible courses of action. Director Olly Blackburn shows a deft hand in spinning a spellbinding metaphor for what separates people from civilization and barbarity.

Paul Blart Mall Cop (3 out of 5 Swans): The first half hour fulfilled all my low expectations. Blart (Kevin James) is pictured as a pathetic loser who washed out of police school and ended up as a Mall Cop. Then a group of robbers takes over the Mall, and the movie quickly changes from a piteous, low-intellect attempt at humor to a light-hearted takeoff on Bruce Willis and the “Die Hard” movies as director Steve Carr keeps the pace up during the last hour.

The Wrestler (4 out of 5 Swans): This is not an easy movie to watch, but what a performance by Mickey Rourke! Director Darren Aronofsky inserts exploitive scenes like the brutal use of a staple gun on Rourke and substantial gratuitous nudity by Marisa Tomei when she could easily have been wearing at least a bikini top without sacrificing verisimilitude.

Valkyrie (3 out of 5 Swans): Bolstered by a terrific cast, headed by Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, and Terence Stamp, Tom Cruise as Claus von Stauffenberg is the weak link in this true story of an assassination attempt on Hitler. Even though most know the outcome (I’m astonished at the number of people who have said they were unaware of this attempt, including Cruise) it’s fascinating because of how they almost pulled it off.

Gran Torino (2 out of 5 Swans): Although Clint Eastwood is still fascinated by death as a way of giving up; at least he’s in his Dirty Harry mode. Despite his initial prejudice, Clint comes to the aid of his next door neighbors, a Hmong family, to defend them against a local gang in this entertaining movie that eschews political correctness.

Slumdog Millionaire (2 out of 5 Swans): This is an inventively told movie directed by Danny Boyle that uses the Hindi version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” to show what life can be like in modern India. The basis of the film is that orphaned Dev Patel tells his story to a policeman who is torturing him before the final question because he thinks he’s cheating, explaining how he got to know the answers to each of the questions. The first hour is pretty slow, but it picks up in the second hour.

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The Tolucan Times is a free weekly community newspaper, published since 1937 and available online. With over 600 drop locations throughout the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys from Encino to Pasadena, The Tolucan Times serves the communities of Glendale, Flintridge La Canada, Burbank, North Hollywood, Toluca Lake, Studio City, Sherman Oaks, and Van Nuys, to list a few.